Karina Gutiérrez’s latest directing project tells a story that carries vast personal depth.

The Santa Clara University professor and Bay Area theater director concedes she hasn’t had much opportunity to lead an opera. But she found the chance to steward one that tells a powerful immigrant story about border separations and a Mexican family, set to the wondrous sounds of mariachi music.

Dubbed the world’s first mariachi opera, “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” (“To Cross the Face of the Moon”) debuts at Oakland’s Scottish Rite Center on Sunday, July 23. The bilingual production, presented by West Edge Opera during its namesake festival, tells the story of a young man named Laurentino and the family he leaves behind in Michoacán, Mexico, as he sets out for the United States to better support his family. Many decades later, as he lays dying, he reflects on his life choices as well as how the concepts of family and home informed his existence straddling two cultures.

“This is not a historicized story; there are many people who risked their lives to come to the United States to make a better living for their children,” Gutiérrez, who grew up the child of Mexican farmworkers near Bakersfield, told The Chronicle. “When I think of this story, there’s great responsibility in making sure it doesn’t become just another feel-good piece, considering the fact that the story relates to many individuals who made this cross.”

Written by José “Pepe” Martínez and Leonard Foglia, “Cruzar” made its world premiere with the Houston Grand Opera in 2010 and has since been performed throughout Texas and beyond, including productions in Arizona, New York City and Los Angeles. It boasts highly acclaimed mariachi groups in its performance history, including productions that featured Los Angeles-based Mariachi Los Camperos and one of Mexico’s premiere groups, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. San Jose’s Mariachi Azteca is providing the foundational sounds for the Bay Area productions, which continue July 28 and Aug. 5.

Singing the role of Laurentino is Efraín Solís, a baritone from Orange County now singing in the show for the fifth time. Raised as a born-again Christian, Solis said secular music did not find its way into his home. Even listening to Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro,” from which Solís took his first trained aria, was allowed only under the guise of him saying it was for a school report. It was during summers with his grandmother that he was exposed to the richness of mariachi, a genre that hails from western Mexico.

索利斯继续发现音乐和取得ts of his voice, including his time as a prestigious Adler fellow with San Francisco Opera in 2015, he learned that opera is dominated by languages such as Italian, French, German and English. The lack of a Spanish repertoire was something he pushed hard against as a conservatory student.

“If the second-most spoken language in California is Spanish, why shouldn’t we have pieces that reflect our culture?” asked Solís, an alumnus of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. “This music should have been taken more seriously a long time ago, but it’s better late than never.

“ ‘Cruzar’ is really helping people understand that this music is not just popular, but accessible and very emotionally driven, carrying the same impact as operas like Giacomo Puccini’s ‘La Bohème’ or Giuseppe Verdi’s ‘La Traviata.’ ”

How Eurocentric the opera canon has been historically is something conductor Sixto F. Montesinos Jr. knows intimately. In his rehearsal rooms, ego-driven discussions about how to play Mozart or Beethoven can dominate the proceedings, he said. Working with a mariachi band as the base of an opera piece has been a breath of fresh air, he said.

“As a Mexican American coming into this project, I’ve really connected with my heritage through this score, and really bonded with it,” said Montesinos, head of instrumental studies at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. “I’ve had such a good time working with Mariachi Azteca. They are all about the music and what it has to say, without any egos.”

Even after multiple productions of “Cruzar,” Solís continues to find bonds as well. He is a performer who loves singing the music of opera’s great composers, yet vocally expressing himself in his native tongue carries heavy emotional resonance.

“There’s something special about singing in your own first language, and there’s also something special about the stylistic approach and the way it fits our voices,” said Solís. “I love doing ‘Cruzar’ because it just feels so natural. It’s still a very operatic style, but has a bit of a Spanish flair to it and I enjoy it very much.”

Gutiérrez, meanwhile, is using every tool of her trade to ensure the impact of the groundbreaking opera is felt long after the final note is sung.

“This story will end in 80 minutes, but for many, their lives are still in limbo,” said Gutiérrez. “The only difference between my trajectory and that of others is luck, therefore I am no better, smarter or capable than others. I want to make sure that people, whether they are identifying with the culture or not, respect the people who have made that journey, because that’s of the utmost importance.”

David John Chávez is a freelance writer.